How do I go about letting people into my life after being abused/betrayed

Gradually, baby steps, but by forcing yourself. No need to go all out right away, but take constant steps at opening up towards people that you feel are deserving of that amount of trust (I assume you have such people in your life).

You'll have to come to terms with the idea that you will be hurt again, but that this pain is not something that will destroy you. It'll hurt, but it is an acceptable occasional tradeoff for the benefits you get out of intimacy with people you like. If you can think of it in those terms, you can find the motivation to make progress.

While seeking to avoid pain is a natural and understandable reflex, you need to identify when that behavior is destructive to your life. Some pains are necessary for growth, some pains are necessary for progress. It is not a bad thing to grow more circumspect of people if you have been burned - in fact it's a vital lesson that you have learned. However the lesson isn't that no people should be trusted at all, but rather that you should expect these sort of things to happen occasionally and to be prepared for it.

>>18398078
Why should I accept that. If somebody is trying to hurt me I will hurt them back. Why should I have accept more people hurting me that's horseshit

>>18398096

You misunderstand, it's not about accepting the pain as if you deserve it, but it's accepting the fact that life isn't ideal, and that some undeserved pain will be sometimes unavoidable.

The utility of the mindset is to not be governed by the fear of getting hurt, which would make it hard for you to open to others. You should instead steel yourself against this sort of pain through gradually achieving the kind of emotional maturity that allows you to take the blows without crumbling.

Nobody said anything about not fighting back.

>>18398078
This op. Maybe see a shrink also?

I vehemently refused meds for years. Now im on them. Nothing to be ashamed of.

>>18398127
I've been going on and off for the last 3 years and pills just make me want to kill myself already tried that
>>18398121
Did you miss the part where I said I've been abused/betrayed my whole life. Why the fuck should I have to deal with more "undeserved pain" I've had plenty of that. Why the hell do I have to deal with more of this shit?

>>18398154
>Why the fuck should I have to deal with more "undeserved pain"
Because everyone does. Why shouldn't you?

>>18398154

Because you don't have a choice, short of killing yourself. There is no state of being that will guarantee you freedom from any kind of harm. It doesn't matter how much you've suffered up to this point, it doesn't decrease the likelihood of you suffering more down the line. There aren't any quotas to be reached and any authority to complain to.

>>18398165
Cool so I should just be on the lookout for abusers like I always have and not let anybody in

>>18398178

What do you expect from this conversation if you're deliberately being obtuse ? If you don't want the advice don't ask for it.

>>18398186
Then how am I supposed to be "prepared for it".

>>18398198

There is an inherent contradiction between opening yourself to people and preparing yourself for possible emotional harm, and everyone has their own treshold of tolerance and ways to accept that contradiction.

However it feels like you are conflating two very different things. There is a difference between the deliberate and pervasive attacks of an abuser, and the emotional harm of feeling betrayed by a friend or lover.

Spotting abusers and avoiding them should go without saying. They can do great amount of harm and nobody is fully prepared to deal with the kind of assault they can bring. They are usually very good at what they do, and what they do is destroy you. You should avoid these kind of people and not open yourself to them under any pretense.

However, those are statistically a low amount of people. Most people you will meet, unless you live in a very strange place, will not be emotional abusers. They will be relatively normal people, that will sometimes trick you or betray you, but not in the systematic and manipulative way an abuser would. It is about these sort of people that we are talking. You can't know beforehand wether or not someone will turn out less than admirable and not reward your trust with the kind of respect you expect, but at the same time, you will need to use your own wits to judge their character, and you will be wrong pretty often untill you become very good at it. But if you consider the harm they can inflict on you relatively minor (which it is), then you can accept the fact that there is not much harm in being wrong about someone in that context (if you judged him too positively), and judging people overly negatively comes at no benefit.

Like every sort of pain you get better at dealing with it by experiencing it and not running away from it but fighting against it.

>>18398198
By understanding that it may happen. You don't accept abuse; you accept that abuse happens. When it happens to you, you deal with it: address it with the other person to achieve a resolution, or leave.